Story:Star Trek: Conflict/Return of the Kelvans
A race of inter-galactic aliens previously encountered by the make themselves known to the ''Enterprise''-C and the ''Admonitor''. Summary Chapter One A permanent change of crew has been made, shifting a great deal of ''Enterprise'' crewmen to permanent duty aboard the ''Admonitor'' to make up for the recent loss of life. Shield is in on the Bridge with the main crew, overseeing a list of the transferred crewmen. None of them, he notes, are Senior Officers. He says that this is fine, because he's quite okay with the current Senior Officer detail on his ship. He then receives a private message redirected to his personal quarters; he leaves in such a hurry that his comm-badge falls off his jacket as he rushes for the door. In his quarters, he receives the message. Captain Young has a daring new plan: drawing upon engineering specs that she claimed she came up with herself, she states that they could combine their warp cores, creating a double output field using the new S'srelli technology, which would allow their ships to travel at faster-than-warp-10 speeds. When he asks her what they could do with it, she suggests that they go to the Andromeda Galaxy, where she believes the S'srelli might dwell. Hopefully, they would consent to becoming allies of their little coalition, which she calls the New Insurrection. As the message ends, Shield begins to ponder what this could mean. As he continues thinking, he discovers that his comm-badge is missing. He walks over to the inter-comm on the wall and opens up a channel to the bridge, only to accidentally pick up the comm-badge's signal: it is on! But he accidentally comes upon the Senior Officers talking among themselves. He hears Loghri, Helsman Wilhelm Werner, and several others. They are discussing their plans for the mutiny, their mysterious third partner discusses that he had tapped into the private message, and he knows everything about their plans. He says that if the warp-pool plan fails, their mission might continue as planned: but if it succeeds, then they might be able to maroon Shield on some alien planet, and therefore not be technically guilty of killing him. They all hail him as their captain as they leave, none of them having discovered the comm-badge. Shield is in shock. The entire Senior Officer crew, which he has just lauded his preference for, has been against him. He decides to stay in his quarters, and only receive messages from Young. Any noise makes him fearful for some kind of trap or assassination attempt. As he tries to sleep, he's nervous and has unsettling nightmares of a man with a face like his father laughing at him, telling him that he will never be rid of him (this his father had once said to him after catching young Edward when he had tried to run away from home). Just as the vision ends, a Commander named Gerald Gradl enters into the room, his face appearing exactly where the face of Edward's father had been in the nightmare. With a disturbingly knowing look on his face, Commander Gradl tells Captain Shield that he dropped his comm-badge on the Bridge and gives it back to him. Shield takes the badge and, when the commander leaves, wonders if he was the ring leader of the mutiny he had overheard just minutes ago. Chapter Two The warp pooling is finished. An extra-vehicular connection pod is rigged up to the two warp cores of each ship, allowing their energies to power each other. On the bridge, the two captains dock the two ships together in order to reduce the energy needed to generate a wider warp field if the two ships were disconnected. They set their course: the Andromeda Galaxy. After a simultaneous order from Captains Shield and Young, the two ships activate their warp drive at the same time: achieving warp 19. At this speed, and the two galaxies being at the closest they will be in 1029 years, the journey takes a matter of three weeks. But it is not a good three weeks. Though the pass through the is relatively without incident, it is the journey itself that causes the most worries. Being stranded in the middle of nowhere, members of the crew start acting erratically. Fights break out on both ships, causing at least 15 injuries and 20 confinements on the ''Admonitor'' and 35 injuries and only 12 confinements on the ''Enterprise''-C. Captain Shield believes that the conspirators might try to kill him, and so he locks himself in his own quarters, leaving them in charge of the ship. Using his comm-badge, he is able to contact Young on the ''Admonitor''. When he tells her about the mutiny, she suggests that he kill the mutineers before they kill him. Shield refuses for three reasons: 1) he does not kill needlessly, and is even hesitant if there ever is a need, 2) they are in need of people to crew the ship, which killing won't satisfy and 3) killing needlessly would make him no better than the corrupt Federation admirals, bureaucrats and officials against which their Insurrection fights. She concurs, saying that is the reason she doesn't just kill all the male members of her crew out of boredom. She jokes this off, and tells him to grow some "male genitalia", which might make him more feared among the mutineers. On the second week, Shield's cabin door is blown open by a small explosive device. He believes it was planted by the mutineers, but he has no proof, and now no safe hiding place. He has to go to the Bridge and take over command, even though the crew is restless because of being in transit for 2 weeks. He finds the Bridge no longer safe when his drink, a hot oolong tea he replicated just a minute ago, is poisoned. He makes his way to Sick Bay and is treated by Dr. Boreas who, fortunately, isn't among the conspirators. After the incident, Shield decides to go to the safety of the ''Admonitor'', where Captain Young receives him and offers him refuge from his mutinous crew. With a whole week left to chat before either of them have to get back into the command chair, Young and Shield discuss current events and how the Federation may have been acting in its own favor. Chief among their discussions is , a Federation colony on the verge of chaos. Young reveals that she had been to Turkana IV once, and had spoken with several dissenters. Among their many reasons for the breaking down of the government, the main object of their dissatisfaction and hatred is the Federation, which they view as the instigators of this incident. According to them, the Federation constantly refused to give them aid during nine food shortages, seven water poisonings and various black-out periods where all power was lost for periods of nine months, give or take seven months. Young later said she contacted the Federation Council, including her long-time best friend Admiral Sulu. Both gave her the same answer: Turkana IV was an expendable, "guinea-pig" project regarding the conditioning a new generation of humans to look to Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets as their savior, protector and as the ultimate and only source of freedom and justice in the galaxy. Young said that she was horrified at this, since she had always admired Sulu ever since she and saved her from... Before she is able to say what she was saved from, she dismisses Shield, not wanting to continue the conversation. Chapter Three Shield is permitted to remain on the ''Admonitor'' while his cabin is being repaired (by crewmen from the no less). The next week goes on without incident, though the crew of both ships have thrown regulations out the door and simply voice their feelings. All of which are negative at being in the middle of nowhere, going where no man has gone before. At the end of the week, the two ships pass the Andromedan Galactic Barrier. Upon entering the new galaxy, they discover that all their dilithium stores were depleted in the "Interspace Run" from the Milky Way Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy. At this, both crews take their captains hostage and imprison them in the ''Admonitor'' s brig. Young states that every maggot will be forced out of the airlocks for their mutinies. The mutineers against Shield want to kill him now, but the mutineers from the ''Admonitor'' refuse, saying that they can maroon both captains on the planet they've approached. The senior officers of both ships beam down, taking the hostage captains with them. Upon taking scans of the area, they discover trilithium on the planet. With that kind of power, they could return to the Milky Way Galaxy with power to spare. The mutineers set the captains to harvest this with their bare hands, despite its radioactive nature. After they have gathered one hover-cart load, the captains and the mutineers are stopped by several humanoids, described by Lianna Young as "having no understanding of the concept of human beauty": indeed they are very plain-looking on the exterior. The humanoids introduce themselves as the Kelvan, and take everyone hostage, including both ships, to be used to keep their race alive. One of the mutineers objects, and he is dematerialized into a salt-cube, which is crushed under-foot of one of the Kelvans. Edward Shield takes a phaser from one of the mutineers posted to watch them and blasts a hole in the Kelvan's face. But there is no hole, only the true face of the alien within. The Kelvan then states that the need for this "hideous, weakening disguise" has become immaterial, and all of his Kelvan comrades shed their humanoid form, revealing their true, "beautiful" state. Chapter Four The alien then reveals its purpose: reproducing its species. Dominated by the katra just for once, Nox uses super-natural speed to overtake the Kelvan. He bites its neck, but pulls back coughing and retching: Kelvan blood, apparently, is poisonous to creatures with copper-based blood, such as Vulcans and Romulans. This distraction allows Shield to fire his phaser at one of the aliens' belts, taking its "source of invincibility". Disarmed, the Kelvan seized Shield in its tentacled arms and tries to devour it. But Nox, who had nothing to do with the mutineers, takes out his shot-gun and blasts the Kelvan to death. Shield is lightly wounded by the shrapnel from Nox's attack, but otherwise fine. They then rush to Young's aid, but too late. One of the female Kelvan, having shed its humanoid form, captured Young and used the ''Admonitor'' s computer to beam both of them onto her ship. The other Kelvans follow suit, but Shield is able to stun one with his phaser just before it can beam out. Shield suggests that they return to the ''Enterprise''. But Nox refuses, saying that he has personal honor to uphold, and that boarding a ship named "Enterprise" would be a disgrace to his family. So instead, Shield calls up to the Enterprise on his comm-badge and asks for a shuttle to be sent down. But too late: Gerald Gradl has taken control of the ship and is preparing to separate it from the ''Admonitor'' by destroying the warp pooling pod. This would trap them all in the Andromeda Galaxy with no way of returning home. Gradl refuses to beam them back, stating that Shield is an incompetent captain, and marooning him here will do the [galaxy, the Federation and humanity a great favor. Shield is mutinied against, and feels trapped. But just as he's about to give up hope, a shuttle, piloted by the only two ''Enterprise'' crewmen who haven't joined the mutineers: Dr. Boreas and Chief Engineer Fredricks. They take Shield, Nox and the injured Kelvan with them on the shuttlepod (Nox can board the shuttlepod since its not the Enterprise proper). While on the shuttle, Shield interrogates the captured Kelvan, which turns out to be female. She reveals to him the history of their people and tells him that the Federation will one day die off as the Kelvan Empire did. She then gets up, opens the shuttle-pod's doors and steps out into space, killing herself. Fortunately, Nox was near the controls and was able to reseal the pod before it was completely depressurized. The Doctor, the Engineering Chief and the Captain are almost suffocated at the sudden loss of oxygen, but Nox, due to his possession by the katra, is unharmed. He is overcome by it again, and performs a mind-meld on all three of them, allowing them to be able to survive in low-oxygen atmospheres, like Vulcans, until he can get the artificial atmosphere back up and running. As the shuttle-pod approaches the two ships, a message from the Enterprise-C comes through: it's Lianna Young. Gradl was captured by the Kelvans, who took him aboard the ''Admonitor''. She, who has escaped from the Admonitor by giving her captors Romulan ale (due to its infamous intoxication effects on humanoids, Kelvans, who are even more susceptible to alcoholic intoxication, are killed by it). Shield suggests replicating it and flooding the ship with the stuff: Young says that she used up all of it on her captors. She then orders Shield and Nox to kill the Kelvans and liberate her ship, despite the fact that it would be freeing the ring-leader of the anti-Shield mutiny. Chapter Five Young chooses to remain on the Enterprise-C and take care of business there while Shield and Nox beam over to the ''Admonitor'' and free it from the Kelvans. Fredricks proves his expertise at handling the transporter by using site-to-site beaming to beam Shield and Nox immediately onto the Admonitor. Nox proceeds to kill every Kelvan in sight with his shot-gun. When they attempt to use their belt-devices to stop them, they are suddenly negated: the belt he took from the dead Kelvan he is now using against them. The neural field they create is negated, and they are able to continue their mission. Shield runs onto the Bridge and finds Gradl being encased in a cocoon by a female Kelvan. He guesses that this must be come kind of mating process, but also conjectures that it would not work on a human due to their anatomical difference from Kelvans. Shield fires upon the preoccupied Kelvan female, killing her and releasing Gradl. Gradl is unconscious, and Shield leaves him there and finds Nox. The Romulan had killed all the Kelvans aboard the ship except for one. The Kelvan says that they've doomed their race by their wanton act of war: the Kelvan Empire will find their Federation and destroy them. The Kelvan then beams out. As the two ships make their return to the Milky Way Galaxy, Young suggests that Shield remain on the Admonitor in her place while she stays on the Enterprise-C and takes care of business. As an added bonus, she beams Gradl aboard the Enterprise. Shield doesn't know how she could be so cruel to other men and yet so nice to him. Category:Star Trek: Conflict Episodes